Spring is the perfect time to clean up the clutter and dust that accumulates over winter and set yourself up for a productive remainder of the year! Tackle your project with the following three-step formula:
1. Get ready… Before you begin cleaning, get ready to tackle the clutter. Prepare for a spring cleaning spree.
Start by labeling five large boxes: Put Away, Give Away, Store Away, Shred, and Trash. Select an area, such as a drawer, desk or room to organize first.
Use a timer. Don’t view spring cleaning as an all-day task! Take an hour here and there to get the job done over several weekends. When you’re ready to begin, set your timer for 50 minutes. When it buzzes, use the last ten minutes of your organization session to handle the boxes: put thing … [Read more...]

I'm a big believer in recovering lost time by killing timewasting behaviors, jettisoning useless tasks, and tightening work processes. But no matter how well you've triaged your schedule, you can probably do even more. That's because most of us engage in small, thoughtless actions or omissions that cost us time. Let's look at the worse time-nibblers you may still engage in.
1. Randomly checking email. Even if you've made a commitment to spend less time on your email, it's too easy to log on to see what's come in just before you knock off for lunch or take that much-needed break. Before you know it, you've lost 15 minutes. Clamp down on this temptation, unless you're expecting an important email that requires a prompt response. Spend time planning out a project instead.
2. Failing to … [Read more...]

Many workplaces today feature more open spaces and smaller, and often shared, workstations. These open floor plans have become “the new normal” in many organizations. Some people speak of them positively, citing the ability to collaborate with coworkers and the creative feeling they can inspire. However, I hear just as many complaints about the walk-in visitors, interruptions, and noise level negatively affecting workplace satisfaction, productivity, and speech privacy. According to research from UC Irvine, office workers are interrupted once every 11 minutes, and it can take up to 23 minutes to get back to what you were doing before you were interrupted.
The brain isn't a marvel of infinite capacity; we are, after all, only human, with all the limitations that implies. One limitation li … [Read more...]

You’ve probably heard Grace Hopper's famous axiom, "It's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission." As a child, my father used to tell me that all the time! As a pioneering computer scientist and one of the first female admirals in the U.S. Navy, "Amazing Grace" surely learned the value of begging forgiveness rather than asking permission during her long, storied career. Indeed, Hopper's Law seems to make a lot of sense in many real-world situations. But is it applicable to the workplace?
The answer, as with so many other business questions, is, “It depends.” There are reasonable arguments for both sides of the equation, depending on the circumstances. For example, if you're an IT tech, you definitely want to ask permission before changing or upgrading the operating system of an imp … [Read more...]

"People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine." -- Brian Tracy
Most of us work in “at-will” jobs, meaning our companies can terminate us whenever they want, without warning; then again, we can leave whenever we want. Contractual obligations bind neither side. With the exception of high-level execs who insist on them to protect their interests, contracts aren't often seen in the workplace nowadays.
But maybe they should be, in a looser, less-binding sense than traditionally used. As a leader, have you ever considered the concept of written work commitments for each of your team members, so you can evaluate how you’re all progressing every quarter? This isn't a traditional contract that would need to be revie … [Read more...]